Chaotic Balance
by ShalaDakiri
Summary: Buffy wanted her mother and sister away from Glory. She just never expected to go with or realized how far they'd go.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any money from this project.  
BtVS was created by Joss Whedon.  
Star Wars belongs to Lucas Films and Disney

*I*I*I*I*I*I*I*I*I*I*

Ethan scowled as his wards triggered. At least his visitor probably hadn't come with plans to harm him, or they would be screaming by now.

He spun in his chair at the point he estimated the appearance at his office door. An eyebrow went up as soon as he recognized her.

"Slayer!"

"Hello, Ethan." She closed the door behind her.

"Didn't think I'd see you off Ripper's leash."

"He doesn't know I'm here."

At that, his other eyebrow went up. Now that was interesting.

"So, you need me for something."

Buffy shifted uncomfortably, "I did some research. Janus isn't pure chaos, is he? Because that would mean no rules and not even life could exist."

"Don't know why anyone thinks you're just a dumb blonde."

The ghost of a smirk crossed her expression, but she continued, "But he's also a god of doorways, and I'm guessing that includes portals."

"Very good, and I'm guessing that aspect is your real interest."

"There's a hellgoddess- Glory- trying to get home. She thinks my sister is the key to doing that and will kill her to do it. I want her and my mom safe."

"You don't want to send this hellgoddess somewhere?"

"She's already tracked Dawn from half-way across the world. Then Willow sent Glory... somewhere and she came back a few days later."

Ethan leaned back, thinking about what the Slayer hadn't said. She was clearly desparate, if she had sought his help without issuing a single threat of bodily harm.

"This hellgodess isn't the only one that believes your sister is the necessary sacrifice, is it?"

Buffy just looked at him, "The only reason I'm trusting you even this much is because if the world ends, your fun ends. No more mischief, no more pranks, and no more Giles to mess with."

"What, exactly do you want from me?"

"I want my sister somewhere she's not being hunted. I want my mom with her, and I want it to be someplace she can get treatment at least as good as anything she can get here. Help me out with this, I won't tell Giles how I found you."

"What about you?"

"Someone has to keep Glory busy until the trail's cold and the deadline's past."

Ethan thought about the demand. Approaching Janus through his doorway domain meant the chaos aspects were less critical for a successful outcome, but there was still enough leeway to make things interesting.

"Deal."

*I*I*I*I*I*I*I*I*I*I*

Ethan followed the Slayer into her house. For all the times he'd been in Sunnydale, he'd never actually been inside. At first look, it was tooth-achingly normal. At second look, a couple of the books on the coffee table were straight out of Ripper's collection, an empty scabbard poked out from under the sofa, and a teenaged girl glared from the stairs.

"Buffy said you're supposed to help us this time, but if you mess with us, I'm going to steal her knives and see how many of Spike's stories I can reenact on you."

"Dawn! Room. Now."

Ethan recognized the woman as the Slayer's mother who, while not outright hostile, still gave him a cold look.

"But don't think I've forgotten about the cursed band candy."

He held up his hands, "Wouldn't dream of it."

Buffy tugged at his arm, "Come on. There's space in the basement."

Ethan looked over the space, nodding. "I can work with this. It'll take a few hours to prepare."

"Why so long?"

"I'd rather not be interrupted if Ripper thinks you need rescuing. Your friends won't be by, will they?"

"They shouldn't. I told them we're doing the family night thing."

"I'll come up for them when I'm ready."

She nodded once and headed back upstairs.

Buffy followed Ethan downstairs, with her mother and sister behind her. A makeshift alter had been set up near the far wall. The battered card table had an old double-door medicine cabinet propped at the edge and a candle at each corner. A tacky, striped scarf that was way too long for any human acted as a runner under the cabinet and a Janus bust, splitting the table in half. The bust had been set with each face towards one side of the scarf.

Buffy tilted her head, "Did you rob a vamp for that scarf? Because those colors? SO Seventies."

"I'll have you know that scarf is a classic." Ethan looked at Joyce. "You and the sprog kneel on either side facing the bust."

Buffy started to look away but felt her mother's hand on her arm.

"Mom?"

"Are you sure this is the best way?"

"I need to know Glory can't find Dawn," Buffy tried to laugh. "and you know she'd just get in trouble without someone to watch her."

Joyce pulled her into a hug, "You know I'm proud you. But I need you to promise me something."

Buffy nodded, not trusting her voice.

"You fight. You make sure you're here for Dawn and I to come home to when this is over."

Buffy sniffed and wiped at her eyes, "I promise."

Ethan clapped his hands, "Well, that was touching. But we are on a deadline."

Joyce pulled away and Dawn darted in to throw her arms around Buffy, "And don't even think about selling my books for shoe money."

"Brat." Buffy snorted, "Take care of Mom."

She felt an answering nod against her shoulder before they separated.

Buffy stepped back near the stairs as Ethan began chanting. The Latin was surprisingly easy for her to follow. It was a little reasuring, although she wasn't sure there wasn't some hidden angle she was missing.

After a couple minutes, he paused and reached across the table to open the mirrored cabinet. He removed two of those fingersticks used for blood testing.

Dawn leaned forward, "Why do you have those and not some ancient knife or something?"

Ethan smirked, "Your mother's health was a concern during my negotiation with your sister. Using these to tune the spell to both of you symbolizes that requirement better than an old dagger."

Buffy tensed as he pricked their right forefingers and instructed them to smear them across the forehead of the bust facing them.

He then removed Band-aids from the cabinet and explained why he'd chosen the camouflage novelty type before Dawn could ask. "The Band-aids symbolize protection and the camouflage is to keep you hidden."

Closing the cabinet he cracked his neck, "Now, I'd appreciate if you remain quiet, as this part takes a bit of concentration."

Ethan began chanting again. After the second repitition, he lit the candles. At the end of the fourth, the flames turned blue. At eight, the image in the cabinet mirror began warping. Buffy lost count when flashes of blue light arced between the candles, the bust, and the crack between the cabinet doors.

Ethan stopped.

Everything went dark.

Buffy scowled.

Ethan straightened. "Lift-off."

Blue light exploded from the cabinet, blowing open the doors. Sparking tendrils of light coiled into the room, as if searching for something. They flickered over the materials and occupants in the basement for several moments before sucking back into the cabinet.

"Is that it?" Buffy asked irritably.

A beam shot out to the Janus bust and split. The first reached Joyce, surrounding her in the blue light. The second hit Dawn and appeared to stutter.

Buffy's eyes widened as the light flashed to her. It strobed between the sisters for a long moment before stabilizing into two beams, engulfing both.

Just before everything turned blue, she saw Ethan's shock and heard him swear. "Bugger. Ripper'll never believe I didn't plan that."

*I*I*I*I*I*I*I*I*I*I*

Buffy jerked awake, with no idea where she was. The last she remembered was the blue light surrouing her, her mother, and her sister. Sitting up, she yelped as her head hit a very low ceiling. She glared at the offending surface before taking in the rest of the space. Above and to her right were a dull, grey metal. Under her was a not uncomfortable mattress and to right was a narrow corridor with two more of what she realized were bunks against the other wall. The upper bunk had a snoring Dawn, who shifted so her arm flopped over the edge.

Sliding out of her bunk, Buffy landed silently in the cramped space and checked the lower bunks. The one under Dawn was empty, but their mother was sleeping in the one under the bunk Buffy had woken in. Shelf-like spaces in the wall at the head of the bunks clearly served as a ladder, with a door that looked kind of like that ones she'd seen in pictures of ships at the foot. Under each bunk were a pair of drawers, probably for clothes and personal things.

A short hiss and the door disappeared into the ceiling. Buffy tensed, especially at seeing the blue-skinned demon on the other side. It gave her a wary look as it sat on the empty bunk and began speaking quietly to the bundle it carried, leading Buffy to realized it was a female with an infant.

The floor jolted from under her with a low booming.

Buffy steadied herself, wondering what just happened. The demon looked terrified and jabbered something Buffy had no hope of understanding. Someone ran past the still open door. Buffy darted forward, hoping to find someone who spoke English.

Another shuddering boom sent her stumbling into the corridor, where someone- a human- knocked her over in his rush to another room just down the corridor. She scowled at the retreating leather boots and the tacky cloth wrapping up the guy's legs.

Buffy rolled to her feet, pressing her back against a wall as more humans and demons rushed past. By now, the booming and shuddering also caused the lights to flicker. A PA system blared something Buffy couldn't understand and wasn't sure whether that was due to the dying audio or the language. One, final, rumbling boom left the corridor in darkness while a low hum she hadn't noticed before faded to nothing.

She glanced around, her Slayer vision just barely able to make out anything using the handful of glowing buttons near the doors along the left side of the corridor. In the abrupt silence, she could hear muffled voices coming from behind the row of doors. She thought she heard someone at the far end of the corridor yelling to get the lights back on.

She flinched as half the lights returned, blinking rapidly as her sight readjusted.

The dull ringing of boots on the metal floor caught her attention. Sprinting around the far corner were three humans and a stocky demon with huge ears, black eyes, and bulldog cheeks. All four carried a gun of some type. They stopped about half-way to her. Two humans disappeared through the only door on the right. The third human and the demon flanked a passage on the left.

Buffy eyed the weapons warily, edging back towards her room. She fumbled for a handle, then turned and groaned. The flat metal had no handle, knob, latch, or any way she could see to open it.

The human looked over his shoulder, scowling when he noticed her. "You should be in your cabin."

"It's locked," she blurted. "What's going on?"

"Pirates." He checked the passage and cursed, drawing another gun from a holster, "They'll be through any minute, so you can either fight, or you can hide."

Buffy narrowed her eyes. While she'd been willing to send her mother and sister away to protect them from Glory, since she'd ended up coming with, there was no way she'd sit out while they were in danger.

She stalked forward, snatching the gun from his hand. The pistol felt weirdly balanced compared to the ones she'd handled before.

"You have used a blaster before, right?"

"Something similar."

The man rolled his eyes and pointed to a selector. "Safe, stun, kill. Don't hit me or Payir."

"I know how to hit a target."

"Good." He shoved her towards the open door behind him into a cavernous room. Buffy glared at him, but joined the other two humans kneeling behind some large, plasticky crates.

*I*I*I*I*I*I*I*I*I*I*

A/N: I'm using an earlier story I wrote for the 2015 Fic-a-Day as a springboard for this story. Thank you, Adam, for bugging me on this and for the brainstorming/writing sessions.

Using Ethan was inspired by batzulger's stories Not a Dream, Fairy Tale, or Imaginary Story and Ancient Ghosts


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I've been procrastinating on posting chapter 2 because I wanted to get the entire raid into one chapter. Then I got stuck. When I looked at it again, I realized part of it is because it's a good chapter break. I've got the next section mostly blocked out, so hopefully there won't be as long a delay.

xXxXxXxXxXx

Buffy crouched behind a row of heavy, plastic-like crates, with a weird pistol. She kept watch with two others through a large, open door, down a short passage to a very solid-looking hatch. Neither of the pair flanking her seemed happy with her presence, but they hadn't protested, either.

She still didn't know what kind of world she'd ended up in, but demons worked with humans, and pirates were, if not common, than at least a known threat. She only felt a minor comfort that Joyce and Dawn were stuck behind a metal door Buffy thought was solid enough to stop any bullets that might ricochet down the hall.

Behind her, Buffy had seen a matching set up, with more crates and more defenders watching another passage. She looked back again.

"Shouldn't we have something to block a crossfire?"

A loud k-chunk rang down the passage. Her fellow defenders tensed, readjusting their aim at the far door.

"No time, they're coming through!"

Steam hissed through the opening as the door split. Instead of the expected crack of a normal gun, she heard whining blasts as bolts of light flashed towards them. Most hit and exploded against the crates, some scorched past her head.

The steam had dissipated, allowing her glimpses of dark, leathery faces with something lighter growths along the jawline. Buffy took a coulple shots and scowled. While this gun had less of a kick than the ones she'd shot with Riley, the light bolts didn't fall off, either. At least she was shooting straight, even if her vertical aim would need some adjustment.

A second k-chunk from the other side announced the imminant crossfire. Buffy ducked long enough to risk looking behind her. The other group had managed to get a couple extra crates behind them, but not stacked, so that was useless for protecting her own side. She mentally shrugged and popped up for a couple more shots.

This time, she was rewarded with a scream. It didn't seem to affect the number of shots coming back at her.

She ducked again, only to see the guy to her left hit by a stray shot from behind. He wasn't dead, but the wound smoked and he was out of the fight. That was so not good.

Buffy grabbed the limp man, hauled him over her shoulder, and took off for the fire-free zone to the side. Shots followed her, some close enough to feel heat as they zipped passed. When she reached safety, she carefully set him down. As she bent to lower his head, a bit of hair flopped into view. A bit of suspeciously short hair with scorched and smoking ends.

"My hair! They shot my hair!"

The Slayer scanned the room, spotting something that might let her get in close, where she could fight her way. It looked like those things warehouses used to move crates, except this one seemed to be floating a few inches above the floor, and it had a solid-looking upright section with some flashy buttons and a handle to push.

"I've got an idea. Don't shoot me!"

The Slayer pushed the cart to the door, with the panel towards the pirates. A couple shots splashed off the metal and she took a deep breath, hoping this stunt wouldn't leave her crispy fried Buffy.

One Slayer-assisted push, and the cart shot forward much faster than she expected. Buffy leaped foward, awkardly belly-flopping onto it, adding to the speed.

She shot past one demon plastered against the wall, staring at her. A thud off the front scooted her forward into the panel. A second thud deflected the cart into the edge of the hatch, and tumbling her through the doors the demon pirates had been using for cover.

Buffy shook off the impact, grateful she hadn't been pinned when the cart crashed. She wasn't sure where her gun had landed, but now she was close enough she wasn't nearly as worried. Her eyes met one of the pirates who'd been giving cover fire and she grinned. The Slayer was ready to play.

xXxXxXxXxXx

Jeryd grit his teeth, hoping he would survive. A couple of the newer crew had asked why they didn't just surrender, but the veterans explained that was the same as giving permission to be boarded anytime they passed through this part of space. Besides, they had several wealthy and powerful passengers in the upper deck who could destroy the ship's reputation and, ultimately, their livelihood if the crew failed to protect them.

He felt a brief pang of regret for the young woman who'd been stuck outside of her quarters; she would have probably had better odds of surviving had she been locked in, like the rest of their passangers. Jeryd had been in the cockpit when the call to surrender came in and, while the Ohnaka pirate gang could be as ruthless as any, the leader, Hondo Ohnaka, was also known for prefering live captives. The upper deck passengers and maybe the captain would probably be ransomed. The rest of the crew and the lower deck passangers, though, would be lucky not to be sold for bantha fodder.

He swung around to pop a couple shots, but the blaster fire coming back prevented him from aiming. At best, he could make them cautious about advancing and he might get lucky and shoot one. One pirate had already been dropped, but friendly fire from inside the cargo hold had slackened. A quick glance showed the blonde woman heaving Fen over her shoulder and hauling him out of the crossfire.

"Blast!" Jeryd cursed the captain for refusing to let them carry grenades. Exchanging the crew's lives for a pretty ship seemed like a bombed out sabacc hand.

A blaster shot scorched his jacket, jerking his attention back to the fight. He pulled back a bit farther, firing blindly and taking perverse pleasure in knowing the misses would scorch the shiny panels.

He thought he heard the girl yell about her hair, then something about not shooting her? At least she wasn't calling for help no one could send.

A flash in the corner of his eye resolved into a cargo jack barreling out of the hold, down the corridor, and towards the airlock. The young woman sprawled behind the control column, clutching for any handhold she could find.

The blaster fire stopped, replaced with shouting and crashing. Jeryd risked peeking around the corner. Three pirates and the jack littered the corridor like the debris from a pod race crash. One had managed to dodge, but he was staring at the woman, who had locked onto the two pirates at the back.

A foot caught one pirate in the chest. A spinning jump kick snapped the other into the wall. An elbow crunched into the jaw of the first. As he collapsed, she snaked a vibroblade from his belt, spun, and whipped it back down the corridor, catching the last standing pirate in the eye. And through it all, Jeryd listened to her ranting about clothes, guns, and... rain?

Figuring there might be a bounty on the pirates groaning on the floor, Jeryd switched his blaster to stun and knocked them out.

xXxXxXxXxXx

Buffy scowled in the aftermath of her little rampage as she swiped a couple more knives and a replacement gun off the bodies. In the quiet on this side, she could hear a distubing lack of fighting from the other side of the storage area. With her luck, that meant the pirates won. She eyed the open space, wondering if she could get over there without being shot up, first.

"Hey." The human grabbed her arm. "They'll be headed for the bridge. We can catch them at the turbolifts."

Buffy nodded, "Lead on."

He took off down the corridor, away from the room Buffy had woken up in. She spared a glance at the door protecting her mother and sister before running after him.


	3. Chapter 3

Hondo scowled as his men finished securing the cargo hold. He could see the fighting on the other side of the ship had ended, but his men hadn't commed the all clear.

"Boss?"

"Go. Check on the bantha-brains in the other boarding party." As two of his men jogged to the other side of the cargo hold, Hondo's pet slicer, Keega, peered out of the airlock. The little Chadra Fan's bat-like nose twitched at the lingering ozone from the recent blaster fight and her large ears swivelled to listen for the rest of Hondo's men.

"Get out here, you coward. You know what you need to find." She tilted her head in a way Hondo recognized all too well, "Don't you roll your eyes at me, you sorry excuse for a pirate."

She whistled petulantly at her boss but entered the corridor and moved to a nearby dataport.

"I tell you again: Speak civilized. Weequay, Huttese... even Basic!"

Her response sounded suspicously like a wolf-whistle.

Hondo spun on his snickering crew, "What are you laughing at? Get to the bridge. Secure the rest of the ship."

"You heard the boss. Let's go." His third best lieutenant chivied three of the four remaining pirates into action.

Hondo turned away from the retreating group, "Good help; so hard to find."

As his last crewman took a guard position next to Keega, the furry little alien chirped and whistled softly as she sliced her way through the ship's security and into the logs.

A blaster shot screamed from the front of the ship. The trio froze in the brief silence before a barrage of fire howled, with several shots flashing across the far end of the corridor.

Hondo jabbed his finger at Keega, "Get me that list!"

A body flew into view and crumpled against the wall.

"NOW!"

Hondo drew his own blaster, stepping behind his best lieutenant.

Keega chittered excitedly.

"What do you mean he's not here? He was supposed to be here! What about his aliases?"

She shrugged, whistling a negetive as she flashed the list of passenger ID's.

He saw the shaken pirate at the end of the corridor raise his blaster but a small, human female appeared, yanked him off the wall, and slammed him to the deck.

Hondo growled in frustration. His target had never boarded and his men were being taken out by much stiffer resistance than expected. This was supposed to be a Refugee ship, not a nexu's den!

"Back to the ships!" He ordered through his commlink as he backed up, firing at the human.

Keega yanked her datapad connection out and scurried back through the airlock.

The human ducked back out of sight, but two more problems shot back from behind cover.

"My Idiot's Array has just bombed out!" Hondo snarled. "And get back here, you Bonehead. I do not have the time to break in a new best lieutenant!"

The weequay stopped advancing and retreated to join Hondo and Keega in the assault ship.


End file.
